


A Christmas Carol

by cazflibs



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: A Christmas Carol, Christmas fic, Gen, Parody
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-13 14:50:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16894671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cazflibs/pseuds/cazflibs
Summary: In this parody of Charles Dickens’, ‘A Christmas Carol’, our Scrooge of a hologram may just learn the true spirit of Christmas.





	1. The Foretelling of the Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> A Christmas fic-gift to all of my wonderful followers. Thank you so much for all your support this last year. Wishing you health and happiness this festive season.

Rimmer was dead, to begin with. 

However, that bears no relevance to the story I am about to tell. I don't know why I brought it up, really. Sorry about that.

But what it _is_ important to realise before I begin this tale, is that Arnold J. Rimmer was a rather frosty fellow. A hapless tyrant whose temperament refused to thaw one degree, even at Christmas. Despite the near-freezing temperatures of the Diesel Decks, this ghost of a man could tread a lonesome path through its maze with no seeming ill-effects. 

You see, external heat and cold had little influence on Rimmer. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. 

Mind you, that could be because he was a hologram. But anyway —

No wind that blew was bitterer than he. 

Well. Unless you’re talking about the vacuous depths of space, because _that_ can be fairly nippy...

...okay, fine. Enough of the Dickensian approach. 

 

It was Christmas Eve, and the Dwarfers had gathered together that afternoon for their own unspoken ritual; re-watching Lister’s favourite festive film, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. The ship’s clocks had just gone three, but it was quite dark already. Probably because it was the usual custom to turn the lights off when in the cinema.

As the words ‘The End’ appeared across the screen and the auditorium illuminated once more, Lister blew his nose loudly into a ragged tissue before sniffing back what remained. “That bit gets me every time, man.”

The champagne glass was already halfway to Rimmer’s mouth when he paused to regard him with a sneer. “That bit?” he echoed, incredulous. “You were pulling out the Kleenex five minutes in and haven’t stopped blubbing since.” He gave a petulant sigh. “Why do we have to sit through this stupid film year after year anyway?”

The Scouser gaped in affront. “Cos it’s a classic, y’smegger!” Shaking his head, he tutted loudly. “Some people have got no class, man,” he muttered as he took a slug of lager before belching under his breath.

“Obviously.”

“Besides, it’s what we always do. It’s tradition.” Hamster cheeks lit up with a fond grin as Lister jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Just like it's tradition for Cat to fall asleep after the pre-show cartoon and Kryten to bring along enough snacks to see the entire London Jets team through to the Spring.”

The mechanoid beamed proudly as he opened the still-laden wicker basket with a flourish. “Another sausage roll, sir?”

The Cat jerked awake. “Wha-! What did I miss?”

“Only the entire smeggin’ movie,” Lister needled with a chuckle. “Every year, guy!”

“Can you blame me, bud?” The Cat grumbled as he straightened his jacket. “It’s warm, dark and cozy. What’s a cat supposed to do?”

“Watch the film?” 

The feline dismissed this with a regal flick of the hand. “Monkey drama ain’t for me,” he sniffed. “Besides, you know I’m way more into the presents and the food!” The Cat flipped open a pocket mirror with rehearsed precision to inspect the minuscule bags under his eyes. “Man, I’d better make a start on my pre-Christmas beauty routine if I’m gonna be ready for the big day.”

Lister sniggered. “Cat, man, it’s like 18 hours until Christmas mornin’!”

“Exactly!” the Cat shot back, face grave. He snapped the mirror closed once more to enunciate his point. “So what time should I be gracing you all with my presence tomorrow?”

“You’re not seriously suggesting that we go through this rigmarole again, are you?” Rimmer groaned, folding his arms. “Spending an entire day sitting through the painful process of pretending to like our pitiful gifts before playing a host of childish games?” He snorted. “No thanks. A quiet day catching up on some reading with no interruptions, and rounded off with a private nightcap in the Officer’s Club sounds rather blissful to me.”

Lister and Kryten exchanged glances. “If you’d pardon my being so bold, sir,” the mechanoid began, treading carefully, “Mister Lister had already proposed an alternative to the usual arrangements.”

Hazel eyes narrowed. “Such as?”

“Hear us out,” Lister leapt in swiftly. “Seein’ as we always spend Christmas on the ‘Dwarf, me and Krytie thought it would be nice if we all celebrate the big day somewhere a bit different this year.”

Rimmer arched an eyebrow. “Oh yes,” he teased, though no mirth warmed his tone. “Because we’re practically spoilt for choice out in the wasteland of deep space.”

“You never know, man,” Lister chirped. “There might be a couple of local planetoids we could party on, y’know?” Under the weight of the hologram’s flat glare, he shrugged limply. “Even if there’s nothin’, a little trip out round the sector together would be nice.”

“Bah, Starbug!” Rimmer brayed. “You make it sound like we’ll be celebrating the ‘big day’ on a Caribbean cruise liner, not that old rust-bucket!”

“Alright! Calm down, Scrooge!” Lister scoffed. “It was only a suggestion.”

"Well, maybe Ebeneezer had the right idea all along!” Rimmer bit back. “Even with the entire human race extinct, you three still insist on injecting every December with saccharine sentiments!”

“It’s called _‘bein’ nice’_ ,” Lister frowned into a swig of lager. “Maybe you should try it some time.”

“I mean, _Merry Christmas_ ,” Rimmer sneered. “What reason have we got to be ‘merry’? The only thing ‘merry’ about it will be how much you’d have had to drink by 2pm.”

“But what about all those pretty lights?!” the Cat protested. “The way they flicker and dance and go all twinkly, and - ” Tailing off, feline eyes glazed over, now somewhat lost in his own description.

“And all that extra washing up!” Kryten gushed, waving his hands with glee. “Such a happy day!”

“The point is, we should spend it together,” Lister pressed. “That’s what Christmas is all about!”

“Well, how about you keep Christmas in your own way?” Rimmer stood, draining his glass of champagne before thrusting it at the bewildered mechanoid. Snatching out a sausage roll from the basket without a hint of gratitude, he treated the man to a smug tug of the eyebrows. “And let me keep it in mine?”

Watching as he spun back on his heels to leave, Lister shook his head, appalled. “You really are a Scrooge, aren't you, Rimmer?” He jabbed a finger at the hologram’s nonchalant retreat. “Maybe the Christmas ghosts should pay you a visit tonight instead, eh? Now _that_ would be a smeggin’ miracle.” 

“I'm already haunted by an unwanted trio, thanks,” Rimmer sniped over his shoulder between chews. “I don't need any more.”

Lister rolled his eyes at the dig. “Might even save that soul of yours!”

The cinema doors swung shut to a distant dismissal of - “Don’t care! Already dead!”

“If you start hearing bells ringin’,” Lister called after him, “then you know you’re in trouble!” Sinking back into his chair, he sighed heavily. “Smeghead.”

 

The cinema foyer was lined with a host of vending machines, their speakers each piping out ancient Christmas carols. Those heart-warming tunes of old - _We Three Kings_ , _God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen_ and _Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree_.

“Scrooge, indeed!” Rimmer grumbled to himself, marching past them without a single glance as their fascias lit up to wish him a ‘Merry Christmas’. 

_#Let the Christmas spirit play!#_

“Is it really such a crime to want to avoid all of that smegging _sappiness_ every year?” he fumed.

_#Everyone dancing merrily - !#_

Fingers curling back into fists, Rimmer grimaced at the gawdy tune. “Just because I don’t want to wear a ridiculous paper hat and endure god-awful cracker jokes, I’m suddenly the villain here?”

_# - in the NEW OLD-FAAAAAASHIOOOOOONED…!#_

Spinning back to face them, Rimmer finally snapped. “WILL YOU STOP THAT INFERNAL RACKET?!”

The vending machines all fell silent with a collective gasp before muttering to one another in disbelief. Complaints of “Well I never!” and “How rude!” rendered the already-stale recycled air even less palatable.

Dismissing them with a haughty sigh, Rimmer ground his jaw and stormed off towards the Xpress Lift.

 

By the time he’d reached the corridor to the Sleeping Quarters, a storm cloud had well and truly settled over Rimmer’s head. But despite his dismissal of all things Dickensian, something in the quiet recesses of his mind must still have lingered upon it.

As Rimmer approached the Bunkroom door, he started at the spectre that seemed to hover in its metal surface. His eyes narrowed at the strange face staring back at him; a ghostly forehead and hair curiously stirred. But when one was dead and sprouted untameable locks, that what was to be expected from one’s own reflection.

Frowning, he palmed open the door and stepped inside, grumbling to himself. The door slid closed behind him with an eerie echo; a resonance that haunted the room in its wake. However, Rimmer was not a man to be frightened of echoes - which was odd, really, as he was frightened of most everything else - so he simply plucked up an Astronavigation textbook from the table before heading for his bunk.

 

He must have dozed off, Rimmer reasoned, as the next thing he remembered was snorting awake with the book perched precariously on his face. But it wasn’t the smell of the musty pages that had roused him from his sleep.

It was the sound of bells.

Shoving the book aside, Rimmer carefully eased himself upright as he listened. Despite the characteristic curl of the lip that soured his face, he couldn’t help but shake Lister’s last words to him —

_“If you start hearing bells ringin’, then you know you’re in trouble.”_

He swallowed, concern just beginning to tease at his features before realisation hardened them once more. Fuming, he swung his feet round to the deck and strode across to palm open the door, revealing a cheerful trio of bell-ringing skutters.

“Would you shut the smeg up?” Rimmer snapped. “I’m trying to sleep!”

Their rendition of ‘Silent Night’ stopped dead before the trio glanced up to the hologram in unison. One cocked its head curiously.

“Stupid smegging machines,” he muttered past a scowl before the door slid shut once more.

The skutters’ red eyes blinked in dismissal before treating the door to the flick of a two-clawed salute.

Rimmer heaved a gruff sigh as he settled back into his bunk. How could he have worried - even for just a moment - that such stories from a Scouser could come to pass?

“Just a load of smegging humbug,” he mumbled to himself sleepily as his eyes drooped closed.


	2. The Ghost of Christmas Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating! Who'd have thought that Christmas time would be busy, eh? *face*

A strange buzzing startled Rimmer awake, sending him bolt upright in his bed. Blinking blearily, ferret eyes endeavoured to pierce the darkness before resting upon an eerie green glow. Frowning, he rubbed at his eyes, and looked again.

 _01:00_ beamed the digital readout of his alarm clock.

Growling under his breath, Rimmer glared at the bunk above. “Very funny, Lister,” he ground out. “Did you honestly expect me to fall for - ?”

He paused, mid-sentence, as he suddenly became conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air. Mind you, that's what happens when you share a bunk room with an unwashed, gassy, curry-obsessed slob. And on the whisper of a single breath, a spirit appeared in the middle of the Bunkroom.

Wide-eyed, Rimmer swallowed. “ - that?” 

It was a strange figure - like a child, or perhaps more accurately, the air of a man diminished to a child’s proportions. The ghost was barefoot, wearing nothing but a tunic of the purest white that tied at the waist with a lustrous belt.

However, the oddest thing about this ghost child wasn’t the the bright jet of light that emanated from its head - it was that this strange spectre was someone he was already incredibly familiar with. Or certainly _had_ been, oh so many years ago.

“Howard?!” Rimmer spluttered. Despite the childish incarnation of the man's features, which he hadn’t laid eyes on for over three million years, the boy was instantly recognisable. “What on Io are you doing here?”

Howard’s resulting sneer was undeniably familial, a trait that he too had clearly inherited from their Mother. “Isn’t it obvious?” 

It took but a moment to slip back into a more appropriate gear. “Dressed like that?” Rimmer bit back. “Not really, no.”

In a voice that sounded far too angelic for the devil of a brother he’d once known, the apparition announced - “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long past, by the looks of it,” Rimmer snorted smugly at his dig.

Howard, however, looked less-than-impressed. “No, YOUR past, you little gimboid!” 

“Who’s calling who ‘little’, pipsqueak?”

“Smeg off, Bonehead!”

“I’ll show _you_ who’s a smegging - !”

“Look,” Howard cut in, suddenly serious, “we’d better move on, otherwise we’re going to spend this entire smegging dream arguing.”

Reigning back some choice words, Rimmer instead settled on a roll of the eyes. “Fine,” he acquiesced, tossing back the duvet to stand. “Let’s just get this entire farce over and done with so I can get back to _not giving a smeg_.”

Flashing him a frown, Howard swivelled back to the porthole window. With little more than a dismissive wave of the hand, the rivets popped free of the metal frame like chestnuts from the hot coals. And in a terrible groan, the entire porthole bowed unnaturally outwards before being ripped out entirely, sucked out into the bitter depths of space.

Startled, Rimmer staggered back as the Sleeping Quarters erupted into a deafening roar. The scathing wind blasted open his diary that lay on the table, trilling back through the pages with such force that it tore them loose from their cover before casting them out to fill the air like snow. 

“We could have just used the air lock in the corridor, you know!” he shouted over the din.

“Oh yeah,” shrugged the boy, frustratingly nonchalant as he stood calmly in the face of the storm. “I didn’t think of that.” Howard gestured towards the hauting howl of space with a unfazed tilt of the head. “Now come on, you great pansy.”

“I can’t go out there!” Rimmer shrieked, gripping onto the rim of the top bunk against the ferocious winds, where his bunkmate continued to snore, oblivious. “The vacuum will rip me apart!”

The child gently extended an arm towards him. “A single touch of my hand,” he began with a whisper before adding flatly, “and you’ll be able to sod the laws of time and space.”

Hazel eyes flitted warily between the hole and the hand, as if weighing up which was more likely to cause him damage. Finally, screwing his eyes closed, he fumbled blindly for Howard’s grasp before wailing as it whisked him away.

 

Even before Rimmer opened his eyes once more, the warm orange glow that radiated past his lids was instantly recognisable. And as they peeled open, the name couldn’t help but tumble from his mouth. 

“Io.”

Howard regarded him as if he’d just stated that black holes were black. “Well, obviously,” he tutted with a haughty fold of the arms. “It is _your_ past! Where else did you expect to wind up? Victorian London?”

With a gasp, Rimmer thrust out a finger across the grassy grounds to a red brick building in the distance. “That’s Io House!”

 _“Yes,”_ Howard replied testily. “That is rather the point.”

“I went to school there!” Rimmer gaped, dumbfounded.

“Ugh, I give up.”

The pair walked across the fields in silence as Rimmer reeled at the flow of memories that besieged him. Their crunching path across the gravel pathway took them round to the classrooms that still continued to haunt him.

“Where is everyone?” Rimmer asked, nose wrinkled. “The place looks deserted.”

“Not quite deserted,” said the ghost. At Rimmer’s confused frown, Howard led him to a familiar open doorway where, together, they peered inside. “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.”

And in an airless gasp, Rimmer spotted him. His poor forgotten self; a single boy no older than nine, hunched over his desk as he scribbled sadly in his workbook.

“That's me,” he nodded, mouth set in a hard line once more. “Boarding during the holidays.” Rimmer blinked. “Again.”

“Mother was always busy with festive functions,” Howard noted, a hint of bitterness creeping in at the edges. “It wasn't always appropriate for us to be sent home.”

Rimmer swallowed. “Time all the better spent studying,” he added, the dismissal not quite as water-tight as he'd been aiming for. “Less - ” Searching for the right words, he simply sighed. “ - fuss and distraction.”

Even the ghost seemed a little lost in its own thoughts before starting at a more pressing need that suddenly came to him. “We have to keep moving! My time is short!”

Spell broken, Rimmer snorted. “Not as short as you.”

 

With a wave of Howard’s hand, the image before them faded away, to be replaced by another oh-so-familiar classroom.

“Oh god,” Rimmer groaned, hazel eyes darting glumly across the walls of that infamous class at Io Polytechnic. “My father’s Psychology Lectures.”

“Surely they weren't _all_ bad?” Howard needled, before gesturing with a nod to the girl waiting nervously in the doorway. 

Rimmer’s eyes narrowed in recollection as he took in her mousey hair and steel-rimmed spectacles. “Alice?” he muttered, lip curled in confusion. “What's she got to do with anything?”

Despite his child-like stature, the age-wise years within proffered a roll of the eyes. “Did you really not realise?” 

Rimmer blinked blankly. “She used to slide notes to me during class,” he shrugged. “What's to realise?”

He paused, stiffening, as his lanky younger self approached the doorway, equally confused. Alice seemed to suddenly appear rather flustered, her attention flitting between his gangly height and something above them both. 

With an awkward attempt at a polite smile, his younger self squeezed his way past before settling himself at his desk to carefully arrange his pens.

“Really?” Howard asked flatly. “You _really_ couldn't tell what she was angling for? It's smegging obvious!”

“Oh?” Rimmer's confused glance searched the scene in assessment before snagging on the mistletoe taped hastily to the upper door frame. _“Oh.”_

There was a quiet pause. A sad moment of realisation as Rimmer watched the poor girl scuttle back to her usual seat beside him before hiding her face behind a textbook. A moment that was shattered by an all-too-familiar insult:

“You UTTER twat!”

Eyes wincing closed at the jar, Rimmer ground his jaw. “Yes, thank you for that.”

Howard snorted in amusement. “Mind you, there was another Christmas that bode a little better in the female department, wasn't there?”

“Yes,” Rimmer said softly, now somewhat distant. “Indeed.”

 

The classroom faded away in deference to the lights and noise of a very merry party. The ghostly silence of Parrots Bar was alive once again with crowds of colleagues all dancing to cheesy Christmas tunes that blared through the speakers.

Caught in the middle of this hustle and bustle stood an awkward ramrod of a young man. Clutching his whiskey in sweaty hands, he glanced around him anxiously - stuck in what was obviously not his sort of scene.

“I only went for the one,” Rimmer muttered, his thoughts already elsewhere. “I didn't think I'd - ”

Suddenly, a woman bundled clumsily into him, their drinks sloshing from each of their glasses. 

“Hey! Watch it!” his younger self snapped on autopilot before his eyes widened in panic as he realised quite who had knocked into him.

“Sorry, love!” McGruder beamed breathlessly, clearly having not heard his snide remark. “You okay?” 

It took Rimmer's younger self three full blinks to regain control of his faculties. “Yes, sorry!” he fumbled. “I didn't realise it was a woman - I mean, _officer_ \- ” he corrected hastily. “I thought - ”

“What?” Grasping his arm, McGruder leaned in closer to try and hear him against the loud blare of the music. “I can't hear you!”

Hazel eyes lingered on that firm hand now latched onto the arm of his younger self. “I wish - ” Rimmer began, unthinking, before shaking his head at the ghost’s curious glance. “Nothing.”

Howard gave him a knowing dig with his elbow. “I bet you didn’t think that three months after knocking drinks, you’d be knocking boots?”

“Do you mind?” Rimmer said stiffly.

“Ooh. Touchy subject?” Howard shrugged in dismissal. “Fair enough.” He too turned his attention back to the pair before carefully adding, “Of course, there was the following Christmas, wasn’t there?”

“Howard,” Rimmer swallowed, voice suddenly thick. “Please don’t.”

 

With another wave of the child's hand, Rimmer watched as the hustle and bustle of the party died back into the sombre silence of his old ocean grey Sleeping Quarters. Perched on the lower bunk, his younger self clasped a red envelope between shaking hands. 

The ghost nodded towards it. “You knew it was from her, didn't you?” he asked gently.

Rimmer simply nodded. Six months of no contact. Six smegging months after she'd suddenly resigned from Red Dwarf had McGruder finally deigned to contact him. He still remembered how angry and upset he'd felt seeing her handwriting on that envelope; could see the torment trembling through his fingers as he weighed up what to do.

“Don't do it,” Rimmer urged under his breath.

His chest heaved a knowing sigh as his younger self screwed up the envelope and tossed it into the waste disposal unit.

“You didn’t even read it,” Howard muttered, shaking his head. After a thoughtful pause, he added - “What do you think she was writing to say to you?”

Rimmer blinked unsteadily. A single letter, just over nine months after that one night together. A riddle that had taken him over three million years to solve. Then - during that heroic secondment - finally meet.

“That I was a - ” he managed, before the word - all-too-painful - died on his lips. His eyes pinched closed with a sigh. Finally, he swallowed, shaking his head. “Why do you delight in torturing me?”

Howard scoffed. “Cos I’m your brother, you dipstick.”

“Enough!” Rimmer snapped. “Take me back!” The hologram gave his pained younger self one last mournful glance as the man slumped back on the bunk and buried his face in his hands. “I’ve been haunted enough.”

What happened next was hard to determine. However, he was conscious of being exhausted and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and then, of being back in his own Sleeping Quarters. He barely had enough time to reel onto his bunk before he sank into a heavy sleep once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The moment at Io Polytechnic was inspired by a Christmas drabble by Tronella which you can read here - https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954359/chapters/20494936#workskin
> 
> You can also tell that I'm a Michael McGruder lover, right? ;-)


End file.
